


love in a hopeless place

by charleybradburies



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Acts of Kindness, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - Power Swap, BAMF Peggy Carter, Background Character Death, Background Relationships, Background Slash, Canon Disabled Character, Canon Het Relationship, Dancing, Disability, Drabble Sequence, Drinking, Drinking & Talking, F/M, Falling In Love, Gen, Getting Together, Hospitalization, Letters, Loss, Major Character Injury, Military, Military Background, Military Backstory, Military Ranks, Minor Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, POV Peggy Carter, Past Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Peggy Carter as Captain America, Project Rebirth, Snippets, Soldiers, Super Soldier Serum, Women in the Military, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-22
Updated: 2016-06-22
Packaged: 2018-07-16 19:13:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7281223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charleybradburies/pseuds/charleybradburies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Steve and Bucky fall together from the train, and the war goes on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	love in a hopeless place

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sbarmarj](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sbarmarj/gifts).



It’s not even all that late, barely eleven, when Peggy finds herself alone again, in the tavern, all the soldiers having cleared out, and the Commandos still away.

Peggy’s not sure anyone’s ever been more gentle around her than so many of these men are now. They know how fiercely she supported Steve, and they know that she’s drinking whiskey all by herself, and she knows what they assume as a result.

It’s not like they’re completely wrong, but really, Steve had barely had the nerve to ask her for a drink. It was Bucky he was really connected to...however, exactly, that had manifested itself. It seemed rude to say that she wasn’t sure, but she really wasn’t. The stranger part, though, was how little it seemed to matter. 

What mattered was that it was all over now. Project Rebirth, the Commandos, and Barnes and Rogers...their bodies lost, somewhere, within the mountains, probably holding each other, definitely deserving far better than what they’d gotten. There wouldn’t even be a funeral...just Peggy and the boys, drinking. Barnes and Rogers had been the only family either of them had had left. Perhaps it was best that way; there was less damage.

Except for the fact that _Captain America_ was gone. The hope of the American people, the very first Super Soldier, the singular and only and irreplaceable Steven Grant Rogers.

+

When the next project is proposed, Peggy doesn’t even think before angrily stomping her way out of the canvas tent. She’s barely phased by the disappointment of the group, but then vaguely realizes that Howard follows her out.

“You can’t be serious!” she barks back behind herself.

“We’re serious, Peg,” Howard treads carefully. “Rebirth was successful, we have to keep pushing. We have to keep fighting...it’s what he’d want us to do.”

“How dare you purport to know what he’d want us to do!” she growls and jerks around to face him, horrified at how absolutely heartbroken she sounds. At least a couple dozen soldiers were watching now, painfully - though less so than she - aware of just how… _emotional_ she was being.

“So, what? You think he’d want us to give up? Steve, and his best friend, gave their lives doing everything in their power to stop the Nazis, Peggy. We owe it to him - to them - to finish this.”

Howard, too, is visibly emotional now, and she knows he’s coming from the best place he can. She purses her lips and sighs.

“Do _not_ go behind my back again. If you want me to cooperate with this, you’ll make sure not to shut the bloody door in my face.”

“I never meant to shut it in the first place, Peg...come on, you know we need you.”

Well, he isn’t wrong about that, even if it doesn’t necessarily make finding a ‘replacement’ for Steve the right plan of action.

Perhaps she’ll just have to make that decision herself. After all, she’s the excellent judge of character here.

+

Tonight, she gets Howard to drive her the few miles to the nearest liquor store, and returns to her own bunk, so as to keep her mourning more private, to find a small box waiting for her. It’s surprising, to say the least, as Howard’s the only man who actually dares to knock on her door, but she’s certainly curious about it, so she sits down on her bed with the box instead of a bottle, and tugs it open.

A letter on thin lined paper, clearly pulled from the pages of a journal, seems like it will answer some questions; the slender white candle that rolls out of it only raises them. 

_Agent Carter,_

_I am sorry for your loss. I don’t mean to be dull or rude, nor to make any of the common implications, but I remain in awe at your capacity for diplomacy and know that Captain Rogers was a truly good man who must have made your job easier and more enjoyable. As I’ve never asked I won’t assume your end of things, but I observed him as very, and understandably, enchanted by you._

_I know the candle’s not much, but it’s the only thing I have to spare that may help with your burden. I often light one in remembrance of my mother and I find that it helps. I hope you find the same._

_If you think of something else that you’d like me to do for you, I’d be honored._

_Sincerely,_

_Cpl. Daniel Sousa_

+

_Hmm._

+

_That grenade test is bullshit,_ she thinks to herself as she’s pacing around in front of the field hospital, surprised she’s thinking so far back. _In battle, it’s never just a test._

Steve had been lucky. It hurts to think like that, that he was lucky just to have made it through basic, but he had been, and now the man she’d proposed as his successor had not been.

 _”Everyone else made it out of the building,”_ Daniel had reminded her, before his primary nurse had decided to begin a round of heavy anesthesia before the imminent amputation of his leg, and ever-so-politely asked Peggy to leave. _”Those kids are safe, you’re safe, the Commandos are safe, better for it to just be me.”_

Maybe he wasn’t wrong to be relieved that everyone else was safe, but he wasn’t right in thinking that he was the only one hurt. As far as they knew, it was very likely he was going to live, but whether he’d walk steadily again, let alone fight again, was against any reasonable odds that they were facing here. 

There’s even a bitterness about the potentiality of having been proven right: no man could rightfully replace Steve Rogers, not even one who’d make hellishly similar choices...not even Daniel. It’d be easier to accept that again if she wasn’t so scared of losing him, too.

+

“We need you, Peg.”

_Oh, not again._

At least this time Dugan’s the one pleading with her, the rest of the Commandos in an arc behind him, and Howard off a few feet to the side, like maybe he’s learned better than to be within a few feet of her when she’s ready to shoot someone.

“We found him. The Red Skull,” Jones tries to clarify.

“And how does that require me? One of our -”

“Every team needs a captain, Peg,” Dugan interrupts her gripe. “And you’re the best the Allies are gonna get.”

“So? Whattaya say? You gonna let your boys hoof it on their own and try to take down Hydra, or are you gonna touch up your lipstick, load your gun, and kick in Schmidt’s teeth yourself?” presses Howard, and a number of feet behind him she sees Phillips looking over at their conversation with an expectant expression. 

She groans, and raises her brow at Howard. 

“Make sure Sousa stays taken care of.”

“Absolutely.”

+

She’s bruised and battered by the end of things, but she makes it, and Schmidt doesn’t, and even in the bitter icy cold and the bloody hospital that feels like enough. But when she makes it back to camp, even the most admirable of the non-Commando soldiers is on eggshells around her again, and the Commandos are more isolated from her again, and something feels not so much wrong as _suspicious_.

Being summoned by Phillips to a meeting with him, Howard, the Commandos, and a number of higher-ups confirms that something is stirring. When she stops by the still-bedridden Sousa that morning, he postulates that it might be something good, and she appreciates the suggestion, but still scoffs. 

She doubts that even he would have thought of the offer that came next. 

_All her wounds healed and more, the title she’s damn well earned, and she didn’t even have to go near a stage._

+

Her first official order of business as Captain Carter is demanding Howard hire her a trained seamstress.

Her second is to get him to make Daniel a proper prosthetic; Howard goes well overboard, but especially with a crutch to help it certainly does its job of keeping Sousa upright. 

Even when they’re discussing strategy and splitting a whiskey, and Peggy catches him humming a song from the radio, and asks him to dance; she hasn’t danced in a while, and neither has he, and they aren’t that steady, but they stay slow enough not to muck everything up. 

Well, until she kisses him, that is. They both lose balance then, and it’s mostly luck that they actually end up plopping against a soft edge of her bunk. 

Lucky enough to keep holding on.


End file.
